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AussieAri's weblog
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last modified Dec 22, 2001 at 22:31
Ok, I’ll admit it. Australian Hip Hop sucks worse than Italian and German. However, it can never be as funny as French hip hop.
How are you going to get yourself into a sold out performance of Cendrillon at the Santa Fe Opera?? You have done harder things- keep this in mind. I have convinced myself I MUST see this performance and reviews from my friends only back this up. Mostly I’m dying to hear the trouser roll of the Prince done by Kristine Jepson. Watch me die die die die die trying.
So, here we go:
a) Sneak in. Probably through the back. Haven’t explored the back which is a disadvantage but I am certain being the world’s only open air opera venue there are various possibilities. Mental note: Consult L.S-D. for info on points of entry.
b) Bribe and/or bully the usher. I am always surprised how people can be intimidated by all 5’2” of me. Seriously. Doesn't make sense to me. Failing that, I’ve found the kiss on the cheek can do the trick nicely. Bribery can be a bit like bartering and i bet the novelty of it won't go amiss on an opera usher. I can set my own price in the end, which is what I’m willing to give.
c) Boff an opera staff/performer/musician/sugar mama. Waaaaay ahead of you there pardner! If only I could find em. I remember hearing that opera folks had very little leeway on inviting guests. To be honest- it may not be worth it.
d) Look in newspapers for someone scalping tickets like every other sorry beggar and pay about $100+ a pop. Sigh.
I have run the spectrum dating this past year. You know what? It sucks.
At first I was into it. It suited my goals and desires at the time. It was a very good distraction. Met new people, be available, be active, do exciting new things and step into someone else’s life and mind for a while. Play the roulette game of desire at the same time. It did lead to some kinda flighty not so memorable fun. I met new people and quickly lost their acquaintance, saw the exciting interiors of several bedrooms, did more laundry than usual, and spent money in the process of figuring out if either of us sort of liked the other, which we did in enough of one way or another, but obviously not enough to continue dating. Gasp! What fun!
But really, in the end there was one depressing fact that was true all around. I couldn't ignore it. I would look at all these women, perfectly fine specimens of the human race that I was having a jolly good time with, and somewhere from the back of my mind my daemon would pipe up saying ‘You know you don’t love them and you know you never will.’
Thanks Dae, couldn’t have ruined it without you.
I guess that’s what I get as a person that doesn’t (that can’t) run lukewarm.
In conclusion:
Meting new people and engaging them on terms NOT to do with romance and NOT if they will be girlfriend worthy material for the future = yes, at a relaxed pace.
Dating as a way of meeting new people = get the hell away!
I didn’t find anything (haven’t yet) in my mother’s belongings that shocked me; nothing that I didn’t expect or couldn’t quite figure into her life. Keep in mind there were things (I imagine a lot of letters) she destroyed before she died. I can’t be too mad about that. I respect her wishes though I have my own thoughts about holding back from loved ones and what that entails. Things to think retrospectively about as i came across old love letters in my own room and wondered briefly before packing them if i should burn them or not.
There are, however, things I have found that made me stop dead, have to cry, or have to do something else. They are the things that will either fade (like her scent on certain cloths), old photos of things I remember (and some before my time) that I had no idea she had recorded, or other certain remembrances she had saved and the utmost care with which she saved them. Fucking breaking my heart each time. My mother was sentimental and a pack rat.
My initial reaction was that I wanted to take the photos with me. The photos fill one duffel bag, one box and one medium sized suitcase. These do not include any of the huge portraits. I could take all the photos with much effort and expense right now instead of waiting for them to be shipped. I could but in the end I chose a few choice shots that showed everyone in the family at least once in the best of lights. I am constantly being reminded of what my mother felt she needed and what I feel I need, which is hard to separate when I first look at her belongings, now my inheritance. I need fewer things than she did. I need to feel as loved as she did and see it expressed.
I don’t mind the idea of my house being furnished in things my mother had chosen for my family. My rooms being heavily laden with her taste. It is not my taste but it is one I am comfortable with (having grown up around) and in place of my own interior decorating tastes (minimal, rugged, and often non-existent), I could do worse. I am afraid that when I do set up my own home with all this inherited furniture and decorations that it will be filled mostly with pictures of those who are dead.
God damn it I want the book NOW. I don't want to wait for the second print! So close yet so far, non? I could always be overly ballsy and demand it from her in person.
She's proof you can write things into your own life. I'm tempted to snap back 'Well there's lesbians and their fiction for you' but i'm also as tempted to start writing some self indulgent literature. I could excuse it as being for NaNoWriMo and fill it with the life i want, a bunch of fantasies, and made sure i've got the people and places in detail. Uncertain whether or not you've got to get the thing PUBLISHED to do the calling into your life bit.
maybe i should try this...
"Though his throat was sore again from his early morning yell of horror, he was suddenly in a terrifically good mood. He wrapped his dilapidated dressing gown tightly around him and beamed at the bright morning.
The air was clear and scented, the breeze flitted lightly through the tall grass around his cave, the birds were chirruping at each other, the butterflies were flitting about prettily, and the whole of nature seemed to be conspiring to be as pleasant as it possibly could.
It wasn't all the pastoral delights that were making Arthur feel so cheery, though. He had just had a wonderful idea about how to cope with the terrible lonely isolation, the nightmares, the failure of all his attempts at horticulture, and the sheer futurelessness and futility of his life here on prehistoric Earth, which was that he would go mad.
He beamed again and took a bite out of a rabbit leg left over from his supper. He chewed happily for a few moments and then decided formally to announce his decision.
He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arms out wide.
"I will go mad!" he announced.
"Good idea," said Ford Prefect, clambering down from the rock on which he had been sitting.
Arthur's brain somersaulted. His jaw did press-ups.
"I went mad for a while," said Ford, "did me no end of good."
“Things are getting pretty desperate, when all the boys can’t be men. Everybody knows I’m her friend, everybody knows I’m her man.”
I know I use the above line often when talking about being disappointed in men as a half of the species but it keeps being relevant.
A friend once said of me he sometimes thinks I’m a dyke because I find myself in a world of men who aren’t really men at all. People who have utterly failed at being whole persons or being able to love wholly. My options for love being thus limited, I turned to women and in the wake decided to pick up the traits in men that I found admirable. Those traits that they had left behind or failed to actualize themselves.
Now, aside from how utterly offensive the above may sound to modern day P.C. sexuality/genderists, I can see how ripe and plausible this view of a dyke’s origin is for a man stuck in a world of declining men. A real psychological point along the lost path as it were, just as Athena was a point for Ancient Greecian men.
I feel myself surrounded by men who are good people with hearts capable of caring (if not certainly scarred/damaged; though this is neither an excuse nor a qualifier) but who have no idea what to do with themselves in this world. In their uncertainty they turn to every distraction at hand; meaningless sex, drinking, other substance addictions, emotional addictions, and a huge swarm of every sort of self destructive action.
Unmarried men from the age or 25-35 are FAR more likely to die in violent circumstances then men of the same age who are married. Do they really need women and children that badly to give them a reason to live? Would they have nothing in themselves to live for otherwise?
I understand and have experienced that women- regardless of sexuality- have relationship with one another than run the entire gambit as far as meaning and function go. More importantly, women are allowed to have these relationships. I don’t think men are or do.
Back to the wishy-washyness. Is this lack of direction and self definition to do with the idea that men are no longer being defined by their job when once that was the main standard? Are they struggling to find something else to define themselves by but floundering in indifference and uncertainty instead? Could be.
I’m not suggesting the blokes all go out into the woods, get naked, and start a drumming circle to reclaim their manly man-ness but hey- there are far worse things men could be attempting to do for themselves as men. I actually DON’T have a suggestion to this problem other than the one I have for most problems. Self examination followed by action. It’s a two step program gents.
All this also makes me think of how as a consequence of these good hearted but loserish men in my life I’ve often come to wonder at the use of fathers. I do think that a father or a male influence, or what a father should be to a child, is a great thing. If, you know, any of them would actually be fit for it.
The pitchers are built like line backers.
The catchers are like mack trucks.
And everyone else are like little zippy japanese cars.
Mehf! *twitch, glean in eye*
“It was one of those nights where you feel compelled to count your nipples in the morning after.”
T.I.A.I.L.W.: Star of the show 'Work Out' Jackie Warner, in that sort of competitive, ‘bring it’ way.
Why? Because I suppose I have a problem with the idea of physical fitness in and of itself and for no other goal. No thumos at all. I may not have 3% body fat anymore- nor do I really want to go back there, but in the words of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champ Rickson Gracie, “Strong men grow on trees". So what? Bring it. Also, I'm not dumb enough to wear itty shorts when I’m riding my motorcycle.
She buys a glass of wine to have it sit on the table not to drink but because she is obsessed with spatial arrangement. Having to stare at a table ill arranged all dinner long makes her sick to her stomach.
The best page in the universe, apparently.
Yiddish phrases, cuz i need new material for when i go door to door trying to sell Insurance against Goyim.
There guys have a very nice copy of Pietro Aretino's book Sonetti Lussuriosi (or La Corona di Cazza) for $4,800.
I have this idiotic idea that sweating is the way to do things. That sweating as a way of living is a pretty good time and fairly normal. I think most of the reason I feel so odd about winter is because by and large I DON’T get to sweat. Some of my most fun moments in the butchery last winter where when I broke a sweat tossing meat or two winters ago when I was hiking with friends and sweating beneath the layers. Maybe because my childhood was so marked by memories of life as a perpetual sweating contest as well as any of my illnesses being me slightly delirious in a tropical climates between sheets sticky with my own sweat. This is all my way of explaining why after a day and a half of sleeping off Buffalo’s last revenge of a head cold tailored to greet moi upon my arrival here I am going to go pedal like a meshuggah on the stationary bike in the basement.
There is no reason to it but it is pervasive. It is the shadow that falls on everything creating distance and gray tones.
I said UNattainable and I meant it!
for now at least…
New picture update that i'm too lazy to cross reference with posts on here.
Weird but fairly good Canadian Cartooning
The Beekeeper- Tori Amos
And this song from WWII written by Irving Kahal & Sammy Fain:
I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.
In the small cafés,
The park across the way,
The children’s carousel,
The chestnut tree,
the wishing well.
I’ll be seeing you in
Every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way.
I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you.
I’ll be seeing you in
All the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.
She’s a control freak which I can understand if you’re working on novels. The long term concentration needed for the projects. I’m skirting it with comics- nothing quite so long as most graphic novels and if in doubt, make it episodical. You can pick up where you left off and don’t have the pressure to say as much in as short a space. Most comic stories you can summarize by re-telling in 15 min and read yourself in a half hour. I agree with her on gin and bicycles though. And cracking the Atomic Family.
Cheers!
White water rafting with Hillah and her Hungarian boy who was made oddly ill by NM his whole visit. Rollin’ down the river was certainly fun and dreamy. It is not so hard to become a river guide as i discovered.
Roller Derby in ABQ. I developed more crushes in two hours than I have fingers to count them on. Wow. I wish there was a Santa Fe team. I would definitely join. Too bad it’s not as violent as I thought though. Which is a funny idea as i'm generally opposed to hurting people but as long as there are rules governing it and i've decided to play the game- i'm certainly not opposed to knocking-the-shit-out-of. The fans have come up with a few potential roller derby names for me: Meat and greet, Sparkly queen Ari-ola, Pussover, Down Underdog (or cat), Mus-skillz. It’s still undecided. Suggestions?
New bike. Dream bike. My bike. Fuck yes bike.
Insurance Lady: “And who is the primary owner of the bike?”
Ari: “Moi.”
IL: “And will anyone else be riding the bike besides you?”
A: “Heck no.”
IL: “*giggles*”
This and other things are part of the reason there is now a Red Honda ‘95 V-Four 750cc Magna Delux sitting under the garage outback. The universe works in mysterious ways. I mean very very mistiky strikingly magical realism sort of ways here. I saw the bike as I was pulling out onto the main road and into the turning lane before it collapsed into an island. I could not believe my eyes. I could not believe my eyes so much that I swore and momentarily stopped driving the motorcycle I was on. My passenger swore too, but because of a huge white jeep bearing down on ourselves stopped in the middle of the road- not because of my dream bike. I’ll be selling the Rebel. Kate’s still got to decide if she can/will make a bid on it. Currently I’m asking $1,800. I’m gonna do all sorts of nice things to it before I sell it too.
Anyway- I haven’t been this happy about a material purchase in..well..since when I got my first motorcycle. That or Teddy Ruxpin for my 7th Christmas.
A friend explained my utter delight because besides the obvious attraction, this bike represents so many future adventures I am going to have. She’s right. I can go further and longer with this bike. There are so many places it can take me and where it can’t go I can hike it. Get it, get it? Whether it’s a false sense or not, it makes me feel free.
So I’ve begun on the list of three things I wanted to do after the funeral with the bike. The other two involve my body as in tattoo and cutting the hair. Both I’m not entirely ready for yet.
Obnoxious neighbors who’s poor dog barks at 6am in the morning and if the dog isn’t barking well after I told them about it, they decided to go clanking around cans and running a stick up and down the chain link between our houses. Santa Fe works on the sun so all this unnecessary noise pollution is mostly legal. Half the time I swear the dog doesn’t have a dog house to go into- just a truck he’s tied up to and hides under in their back driveway. Nasty old shriveled up spiteful people. This is the sort of thing that makes me want to go live in the woods. Probably gonna move again in the next month or two.
Modeled for a class in Los Alamos. You know what? I like them much more than the Santa Fe group. So maybe they don't all make their money off of being (pretending to be) 'pro-fess-anal artists' up there but they were far more considerate, respectful, and laid back. Plus they gave me a damn good tip. I don't relish the idea of picking up more radiation though...
Grieving and visiting her grave. Nothing much new there. I keep wondering how long it will take to get a headstone. How long for the turf to come and how long for it to take root. I keep counting the new graves that have been added, all the way down the line of the plot section.
Not working. I can still luckily afford to do so. I know in my heart i'm just not ready to go back to the Whole again. I need to reassess my options before i blindly dive in to work/study though. There may be places far better for me to be. Maybe there will always be a song that plays on the radio, or a little fair haired girl and her dark haired mother together and i'll have to take a 5 minute break. Right now there are too many through. I have been humbled by crying more as i have been humbled by the fact i simply can not sometimes manage to do what i set out to do in that day. Rolling with the breaking waves of my emotions, as i think of it.
With all the hiking and biking I’ve been doing I am currently ignoring the fact I can’t tan. At all. Woohoo for the Australian legacy of melanoma! I wish I had olive skin. A nice dog accompanied me on a hike bounding all over Atalaya. I thought I might be a new owner of one female lab mix dog but the switchboard at the college helped me track down the dog’s owner. I’m sick of the Dale Baldy trails so I’m going to start on the Ski basin ones and any others I can find in the area. So many places in New Mexico I have not yet visited for having lived there as long as I have. Sigh.
Without further adieu, Hikes Ari Must Do! (dumbass):
Lake Nambe, Lake Cathrine, Bandalier National Monument, Lake Peak, Glorietta Conference Center, Borrego trail/Windsor/Bear Wallow, Caja del Rio Canyon, Deception Peak, Dome Wilderness Area Trails, Glorieta Baldy, Holy Ghost Creek, Spirit Lake, La Vega, Raven’s Ridge, Beatty's Cabin , Aspen Vista, Hyde Memorial Park Loop, All the way up Tesque Creek.
And Places I must go! (you tourist):
White Sands, Carsbad, Silvercity, Shidone, Tinkertown, Madrid’s mine, Truth or Consequence, Roswell, Abique/Ghost Ranch, Ghost towns galore!
My Heterosexual Life Partner Kate!
Truth serum dating. Set them up, poke em’ on the way to the table and watch them be blatantly with one another about their many faults and boring qualities.
Dating through other people. These are only actors wearing wires, the real people are elsewhere thinking their date is with the really good looking actor.
It’s gotten old to me but look- what is it that lawyers are usually characterized as being? Got all those images bubbling up in your head? Ok, now get this. Our lawyer’s name is Human.
It’s like having an undertaker who’s name is Dead. A building constructor who’s name is Falling.
Talk about being breed into a business.
After he blacked out he came to the next morning in his bed naked. He has no clue how he had gotten home. He had to go check and see if the car was alright, if it was even in the driveway. In the mid-summer morning light he found his cloths in a crumples pile in the back yard except for his watch and a single sock which somehow got to the front yard. The car was fine.
After going through my dead mother’s lingerie I think I need a stiff drink. Besides the bastards in the mansion across the way have started up their obscenely large and loud music system and It sounds like Beatles kareoke in waves over the sounds of neighborhood fathers moving their lawns in the only communal activity in this suburb. There is a reason I don’t carry long range projectile weapons. I am fucking out of here.
What’ll it be?
Movie? Obviously East-coasters don’t find Mexican wrestlers quite as funny as we do in the Southwest. All I wanna see is that stupid movie Nacho Libre and of course it’s not playing anywhere in NY.
Perhaps a state taxed lap dance? You know they TAX private lap dances here. I don’t exactly trust strip joints in this town though and I can’t get a good fix on the atmosphere of them from any online listings.
I could go to a dyke/gay bar- My foremost choices are Roxy’s where on the weekend things are packed and sluty and I am sometimes afraid that when I stand up from my bar stool my pants will stay behind me stuck to the chair. However tonight is Kareoke and compared to my local K-oke shindig in Santa Fe, I know I’ll be disappointed. No comparison really.
OR there’s Ms. Kitty’s; which is a fine fine place with nothing happening but an open bar and a friendly crowd. I am not exactly in a friendly mood if you’ve noticed so this is right out.
Club Marcella’s Drag drag drag drag drag. Does it ever get you down? Not really. Who doesn’t like a good drag show? Besides. They’re got the only midget drag queen I’ve ever seen and shit is she good. So that’s at least one option that’s not a shoe in for a bad time.
I could try ridding the world’s only mechanical bucking buffalo again- but if there’s one thing worse than cocky psudo cowboys anywhere else in the world it’s New York God Damn Cowboy wannabes.
There’s the mystical magical gambling land of the Seneca Casino in Niagara. Last time I went everyone was grim faced and busy loosing money in that last and biggest holdout of indoor smoking of perhaps the entire state of NY (it’s Indian land, duh). Some old biddy ashed in my martini which I had to BUY mind you, because the gin and tonic they gave me was actually slightly gin flavored water- not even gin flavored tonic.
I’ve already trolled every porn store in the area back when I lived here and there’s really nothing exciting or out of the ordinary there. The only fetish shop in the city closed down 6 months ago.
There are of course a plethora of bars (dives) on every corner downtown but I am not such a fan of the fact fighting seems to be right up there with getting ripped as the main reason why people go to the bars here.
I could pop over to Canadia but unless I’m going to Toronto (I don’t want to go to Toronto), the only thing to do (besides more gambling and cheap ass sideshow thrills) is stalking Canadian Mounties and they only come out during the daylight. Be vewy vewy quiet, eh?
There’s Nietzche’s where someone called ‘Son of Memphis’ is playing. This sounds better than anything else right now but that doesn’t mean it’s exactly grabbing my tits.
The Left Bank, The Crocodile Bar, and Lafayette Tap Room all sound a little too she-she and more about indigestion that I’m interested in.
As far as live theater goes the only thing I want to see doesn’t start till tomorrow. I already checked- there's not a variety show/cabaret in town.
Or I could just hurl myself over the falls for shits and giggles. WHY NOT.
GuuuhhhHRRRRGGG.
I am out of sorts on all accounts but I am out of here! Some Tori for the drive:
"I could just pretend that you love me
The night would lose all sense of fear
But why do I need you to love me
When you cant hold what I hold dear
Oh God could it be the weather
Oh God why am I here
If love isnt forever
And its not the weather
Hand me my leather"
goodmorning barons of suburbia. I hope whatever it is you keep yelling that you ‘know better about now’ out on the front lawn at 6am was worth it.
Yes you are correct. I am not so interested in updating these days. Needless to say, i have been keeping busy with a variety of generally outdoorsy activities and adventures. Things have been happening and i have been managing to enjoy myself now and again. I doubt i'll be able to write about any of it for a while so you'll just have to give me a ring if you want to know.
I'll be in Buffalo again from the 23rd to the 2nd. Urk.
In the mean time, go see some pics of us white water rafter on the Rio Grande here.
Things I learnt:
Grief will change you. You will not be the same. It is a new chapter of your life even if it doesn’t feel like it.
No matter how much you plan the after events of funneral/reception/wake, there will always be the unforseen.
So much more shit will now seem worthless and senseless.
Most people can not relate to the death of a parent and therefore have no idea what to say. The people who help you will not be the ones you expect, most surprisingly, those acquaintances who share your day to day. They are the ones that will see the pain in your eyes and your walk again and again.
You get over crying in public. Quickly.
Honestly and swift settlement of disputes or differences instead of passive aggression becomes even more important and simply necessary for sanity’s sake. Simply e.g. Answering ‘how are you doing today?’ truthfully regardless of how awful you are doing.
You have no obligations to others as far as plans and spending time with them goes. Feel free to cancel, change them, and crash out with or without explanation. Hell, park on the sidewalk if you feel like it/need to. If worst comes to worst, the court/police officer will understand.
You will want to run away from everything you have, most notably all the people who care for you. This will not help, but if you do find solitude necessary- continue to send some messages out there from time to time.
You have your own patron saint now.
It is possible to shock an undertaker.
There are things I have yet to learn:
How to come to peace with it.
How to have some sort of active presence of the person lost in your life.
How grief changes you.
she's gone.
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